Drinks Adventures - Wine, beer, whisky, gin & more with James Atkinson

Michael Fragos is chief winemaker and general manager at McLaren Vale winery Chapel Hill, which this year celebrated its 50th vintage.

Michael has been with the company for the last 21 of those vintages. So, in this special episode of Drinks Adventures – produced in partnership with Chapel Hill – he shares his insights on the winery’s evolution and the attention to detail that defines its winemaking process.

This meticulous approach has this year inspired the release of a new flagship wine, The Devil Shiraz 2020, which plays on the saying, ‘the devil’s in the detail’.

We’ll explore that new release in this interview with Michael, along with some of the experiments and tweaks he’s made in the winery over the last couple of decades to take the Chapel Hill wines to even greater heights.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a special episode of the show reporting on Australian spirits’ ambitions of becoming a $1 billion export industry by 2035.

We all know the quality is there, and that $1 billion objective is what economics firm Mandala Partners believes is achievable if the Federal Government gets behind the Australian spirits industry, just as it has done for wine over several decades now.

The spirits industry tabled its ambitions in the Federal Inquiry into Food and Beverage Manufacturing in Australia, which is currently being conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources.

I’ve been involved in the inquiry process through my day job as Media & Communications Manager for industry body Spirits & Cocktails Australia.

This episode presents audio from four separate hearings held in Sydney, Canberra, Hobart and Melbourne between June and August, which I’ve edited together for narrative purposes.

If this is the first time you’ve listened to Drinks Adventures, nearly all of the people and brands featured in this episode have appeared previously on the show:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined this episode by Wade Rushton-Clarke, chief executive officer, Australia and New Zealand at keg rental company Konvoy Kegs.

The issue of lost and stolen kegs has long plagued brewers in Australia. But you may have seen earlier this year, a spike in instances of large-scale keg theft by opportunists who were then flogging the empty kegs off as scrap metal.

This unscrupulous practice is very financially damaging for brewers who have a lot of money tied up in kegs, which they must be able to access in a timely fashion to supply their customers. Clearly, it's the last thing that the brewing industry needs right at the moment.

The extent of the problem has been uncovered by Konvoy's technology that tracked the missing kegs to a handful of scrapyards, giving police the evidence they needed to bring the offenders to justice.

And as a result, Konvoy has been able to reduce the incidence of missing kegs in its fleet to less than one per cent.

Wade and I discussed these and other benefits of Konvoy's tracking technology in this special episode of Drinks Adventures, produced in partnership with Konvoy Kegs.

You'll hear how the tracking beacons can inform brewers how quickly their products are turning around in venues, so they can be confident that we consumers, are enjoying their beers in the best possible condition.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined this episode by Cam Hines, co-founder of pioneering Australian craft brewer Mountain Goat.

Cam exited the beer industry after the sale of Mountain Goat in 2015 to Asahi, which was one of the first in a series of craft beer acquisitions by the major brewers over the last decade.

I was pretty intrigued when I learned that Cam had returned to entrepreneurship as founder of Southern Seagreens, a business farming seaweed on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

So, as we take a little bit of a tangent from our usual programming, Cam shares how he transitioned from brewing to aquaculture, initially inspired by a Tim Flannery documentary on the environmental benefits of seaweed.

First up though, Cam reflects on his 18 years building the Mountain Goat Beer brand and shares his thoughts on the current state of the Australian beer industry.

For more on Mountain Goat Beer as it is today, make sure you check out the episode I recorded in 2022 with current head brewer Alana Rees.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re joined this episode by Kristy Lark-Booth, founder of Killara Distillery in Tasmania.

Kristy is a second-generation distiller, following in the footsteps of her parents Bill and Lyn Lark, who of course pioneered the modern Australian craft spirits industry when they opened Lark Distillery in 1992.

Kristy founded Killara Distillery in 2016 and is now making an eclectic line-up of quality spirits at a 26-acre property in the Coal River Valley.

She’s established her own gin garden where she is growing her own juniper and other botanicals; recently planted a trial crop of barley that would enable a grain-to-glass whisky; and has ambitions of planting a vineyard for an estate brandy.

Those are just a few of the projects currently underway for Kristy, who is also the new president of the Tasmanian Whisky & Spirits Association.

So, coming up later in the interview we get a general update on Tasmanian industry is faring, and we get an update on the TWSA’s quest for technical standards that will properly define and protect the different categories of spirits produced in Tasmania.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re joined this episode by Trina Smith, chief winemaker of white wine and sparkling wine for Pernod Ricard Winemakers.

Sparkling is one of the top performing wine styles in Australia, with current economic conditions driving many of us to choose more affordable wine alternatives to champagne.

This scenario has been a boon for Mumm Terroirs, the range of sparkling wines produced in collaboration with the renowned champagne house G.H.Mumm.

Comprising cuvees from Tasmania here in Australia, Marlborough and Central Otago in New Zealand and Napa in the United States, the Mumm Terroirs range is growing strongly, with plans afoot to continue its expansion.

This is a special episode of the Drinks Adventures podcast, produced in partnership with Mumm Terroirs.

Coming up, we discuss the philosophy behind the Terroirs range; the unique characteristics of each region; and the evolving preferences for drier sparkling wines in Australia.

That’s after we find out a little bit more about how Trina found her way to Pernod Ricard and the additional role of committee chair for the Australian Sparkling Wine Show.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veteran drinks industry executive Nick Boots returns to the Drinks Adventures podcast, having just taken on a new challenge as CEO of Gold Coast, Queensland-based brewery Black Hops Brewing.

This follows a 12-month stint consulting with craft breweries in Australia and New Zealand under the company name The Business Of Beer, prior to which he was general manager of Stone & Wood Brewing Company.

Nick took the reigns at Black Hops shortly after the company emerged from voluntary administration with a new ownership structure.

It seemed timely to catch up for a chat about recent challenges in the brewing industry, and his plans to rebuild the Black Hops business.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this opening episode of Season 19 we meet Alex Munch, co-founder of Denmark’s Stauning Whisky.

Stauning was founded in 2005 by nine friends with diverse career backgrounds, none of them related to the drinks industry.

But what they didn’t know ultimately took them down a path of craft whisky production that was quite distinctive and on trend; showcasing locally grown barley and rye that they floor malt in-house at the distillery.

Coming up, Alex explains how the endorsement of Denmark’s famed Noma restaurant helped catapult the brand onto the international stage.

And we discuss the landmark investment from Diageo-backed Distill Ventures, which enabled Stauning to scale up operations while steadfastly maintaining the traditional production methods that have come to define its house style.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we meet Derek Charge, who is CEO of Hellyers Road Distillery in Tasmania.

Hellyers Road was founded in 1997 by a group of dairy farmers who decided to diversify their business into the production of whisky.

At the time of this episode going to air, the company is in the final stages of an equity crowdfunding campaign that has already generated almost $3.5 million worth of investment.

I've never known much about Hellyers Road beyond what I've heard anecdotally from people.

So, this juncture seemed like the perfect opportunity to catch up with Derek and satisfy my curiosity about a significant player in Australian whisky that up until now, has flown a little bit under the radar.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we meet Richard Jeffares, founder of the gluten-free brewery Two Bays, which recently won a gold medal for its Session Ale at the World Beer Cup.

The World Beer Cup is often referred to as ‘The Olympics Of Beer’. It's held in America every two years and unlike most of the other drinks competitions around, there is only one gold, silver and bronze medal awarded in each beer category.

It's frightfully difficult to win a medal, especially for breweries on the other side of the world, which naturally face logistical challenges getting their beer in front of the judges in peak condition.

As such, there's only been a handful of Australian breweries that have ever won medals in the World Beer Cup, with 9300 beers entered this year from 2060 breweries in 50 countries.

Two Bays founder Richard Jeffares and head brewer Kristian Martin were in Las Vegas to collect the award.

And when I caught up with Richard on his return to Australia, it was also a chance to hear about other developments at the company, which continues to impress with its mastery of beers made from a base of millet, buckwheat and rice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices